Gov't agencies eye suggested wholesale price for agri products

The Department of Trade (DTI), Department of Agriculture (DA) and the Department of Interior and Local Government (DILG) are planning to impose suggested wholesale prices (SWP) on agricultural commodities in an effort to curb price manipulations from the traders’ level.

“Aside from the [suggested] retail price, the three agencies are now looking into enforcing a suggested wholesale price to monitor the traders,” the DTI said in a statement Wednesday.

For the retailers to comply with the SRP, the market masters must check if the traders entering their markets as well as the retailers are overpricing, according to Trade Secretary Ramon Lopez.

The DA earlier issued Administrative Circular No. 01 which imposed SRP for major agricultural products in Metro Manila.

Covered in the circular are the following food items, with their respective SRP per kilogram:

 

•     Pork (pigue/kasim) - P190
•     Chicken (whole, dressed) - P130
•     Sugar (raw, brown) - P45
•     Sugar (refined) -  P50
•     Bangus (cage-cultured) - P162
•     Tilapia (pond-cultured) - P120
•     Galunggong (imported) - P130
•     Garlic (imported) - P70
•     Garlic (local) -  P120
•     Red onion (imported) - P95

“This is a call to all traders and retailers in all Metro Manila markets. We now have the suggested retail prices for [these] food commodities. The monitoring and surveillance are a multi-government department approach, to include the local government unit concerned. Please, let’s strictly observe the SRP,” Agriculture Secretary William Dar said.

For his part, Lopez said the effectiveness of the SRP implementation is dependent first on good information campaign and the cooperation among DA, DTI and the DILG with the local government units concerned, “since they are the ones who supervise the market masters in the public markets.”

Consumers were urged to report violating retailers to DTI through the 1-DTI (1-384) hotline.

Otherwise, Interior Secretary Eduardo Año said they can also approach the police or the local action centers of their cities or municipalities. —LDF, GMA News